The poor blog’s been neglected. I’ve been very busy!

Back when Sam and I roomed together in Jester, I had this half bottle of chocolate milk that I thought would be fun to seal up with tape and then leave on my shelf… well, that’s basically what happened until we moved out. It was probably there for a whole semester or two until we finally threw it away. It was quite solid by that time. Anyways, something reminded me of this on Facebook, so I went looking for a picture of it. I didn’t find that, but I thought I’d tell you about it. =p

I also went on a hunt for an old W2. I didn’t find that either, but I found an old yearbook, so I took a trip down memory lane and went through a few old things and took pictures of them.

Here’s my Senior Scrap Book and some select pages:

Like I mentioned earlier, I found an old yearbook and and noticed that Chad, Nancy and myself made a good concentration of photos since we were usually placed around the same general area. There’s not really another set of my friends that had this same clump. I took some pics going back to middle school, too.

Chad and I, 1997 (7th grade). The writing’s from Nancy, years later.

Chad and Nancy, 1999 (10th grade). They messed up my photo and put me somewhere else with a different name.

Chad, Nancy, and I, 2000 (11th grade):

Chad, Nancy, and I, 2001 (12th grade):

For fun, here’s one of Olivia and Doris (2001):

A few weekends ago, Van came into town for his brother’s wedding. We decided to treat him to Uchi, and then decided that we couldn’t let him go back to Boston without having the brussel sprouts and fried milk from Uchiko, so we immediately went there afterwards. The waiter at Uchiko was quite pleased when we told him what we had done, haha.

For my birthday, my family got me a Nest at my request. It’s pretty!

…so after the aquarium, we went to Kokkari Estiatorio for first dinner. The appetizers and the dessert I got were pretty awesome. I’m pretty tempted to say the dessert I got (the galaktoboureko, which I pronounced “galactic burrito”), was the best I had the entire trip. The main dishes were good, but out-classed by what came before/after. Overall, highly recommended.

Second dinner was at Commonwealth, which I feel was good, but we were already somewhat full from Kokkari, so probably couldn’t fully appreciate it.

In the morning, we discovered the place we had planned to eat at, Red Door Cafe, was closed, so we went to Brenda’s French Soul Food. Their breakfast was alright. I liked the beignets, but the rest were okay. I hear their lunch/dinner is pretty good though.

Off to Los Angeles we go, where we meet up with Beika to eat at Animal. Very recommended. We devoured many creatures.

For a late night snack, we went to a ramen place, which was pretty good. It’s Sam Approved.

The next morning, we did first lunch at a Korean place, Seongbukdong. Recommended. It was very solid.

Next up for second lunch, a visit to Umami Burger. I enjoyed the Manly Burger pretty well!

Finally, for third lunch, because we’re crazy, we get sushi at Sushi-Gen. It was a good deal, but nothing crazy.

For dinner, we go to Angelini Osteria, which I enjoyed pretty well. I would go back. The desserts were tasty. Allegedly, Nancy and Grace saw Justin Timberlake here, but Nancy took an extremely poor photo of the sighting, so it’s impossible to verify their claims.

Plus, TC really hit it up with Grace:

More dessert at Diddy Riese Cookies. It was so-so.

The next day, we went to Mole of the Gods. They were closed when we first rolled up and we were about to leave when they opened their doors. We were lucky of our timing! They were very good.

Then, we take off to Phoenix where our first stop is the renowned Pizzeria Bianco. Highly recommended, especially the Rosa (we got two and added prosciutto to one).

For dinner, we headed off to Binkley’s, which surprisingly was the best meal of the trip. It was freaking amazing and extremely competitively priced. I highly urge anyone in Phoenix that is prepared for a very long, awesome meal, to go to this place. The food wasn’t quite as unique and various as Alinea, but at a fraction of the cost and spectacular on pure “OMG-that-tasted-awesome.” Mark says that the chef was ex-French Laundry, but if our experience was any indication, he’s completely surpassed them. I’m serious. This place is so awesome, we’re going to watch for cheap Phoenix tickets so we can return on some random weekend. Plus, hotels in Phoenix are cheap!

The next morning, we go to Vegas! On the way, a quick photo-op at the Hoover Dam:

After getting to Vegas, we eat lunch at Comme Ça. It was not bad.

For dinner, we went off the strip to Kabuto. Would definitely go again. I felt bad I couldn’t eat that much because we had a late lunch.

Brunch the next day was at Bouchon. I liked it a lot.

CRAP! I just realized I didn’t get a group shot in front of Bouchon. DARN IT!

Later, we met up with Olivia, where I gave in to being uncomfortable and had a shot. Woo?

For dinner, we went to Cut. My steak was disappointing, unfortunately, as it wasn’t as marbled as I expected, but I tried some of the crazy stuff Andrew/TC/Mark got and it was pretty intense.

That’s it! Mark and I finaled back in Austin with Greg at Uchi. I took it easy on myself and didn’t take any pictures there, so that’s it! Tata!

I probably won’t blog about the whole thing right now, but I’ll cover a few highlights and revisit. It took Sam and I roughly 14 hours to get to Seattle due to flights getting delayed/canceled, etc. The one nice thing about that is that I got upgraded to first class flying to Seattle from Houston. I’ve got a ton of pics here, but I’ll directly include a few…

One of our first stops as a complete group was to Nielsen’s Authentic Danish Pastries. The danish I got was, in fact, very tasty. Recommended.

Prior to Sam, TC and I’s arrival, the group went to Serious Pie, but decided to go back again for first lunch. I had been there previously on a business trip and it did not disappoint the second time around. Recommended.

We walked around Pike Place Market, met up with Victoria, and then walked a mile and some to Pike Street Fish Fry and had some tasty “fish and chips” for second lunch. Recommended.

Off to Portland we go, and after checking in to our hotel, we hit up Aviary. It was really good. Highly recommended.

For a late night snack, we hit up Biwa. For some reason we thought they closed really late, but we got there right as they were closing up but they sat us anyways. Though the food was good, can’t say it stood out any IMO. If I lived in the area, I could see myself going back, but I probably wouldn’t make a point of visiting again.

In the morning, we waited a long time to eat at Tasty N Sons. It was worth the wait. Very recommended.

For lunch, we hit up Pok Pok, which was great. Highly recommended. Get the chicken wings. They were amazing. Afterwards, we got more dessert at Scoop.

After that, we make the long drive to San Francisco…

…and make a quick stop at Voodoo. It was alright.

We arrive in SF really early in the morning, but wake up in order to get some Chinese baked goods at Napoleon Super Bakery, accompanied by Tiff, Alex, and Kelsey who were wonderful guides. The dan tats (all I cared about) were good!

Our planned lunch, Swan Oyster Depot, was unfortunately closed for Labor Day, so we hit up Shalimar instead where I got some brains to eat. It was tasty.

A few of us then went to get ice cream at Smitten which also was tasty.

Off to French Laundry we go, all dressed up!

Unfortunately, I can’t say I’d recommend French Laundry. While I don’t regret going, I wouldn’t go again. The food was good, but not good enough to justify the price (I’d much prefer Alinea), and the service was so formal, it was awkward. I guess some people may like that type of service, but I found it a bit stifling. We had a good time regardless though, and there were definitely a few dishes that were pretty tasty, I just can’t say I’d highly recommend it to anyone.

The next day, we go kind of crazy and book two lunches and two dinners. For first lunch, we go back to Swan Oyster Depot. I’m super glad we did. This place was awesome, especially the smoked salmon. Highly recommended.

For second lunch, we went to a Burmese place, Burma Superstar. It was really good. Highly recommended. Nancy really liked the tofu.

After that, we hit up the Golden Gate Bridge and the Steinhart Aquarium.

I’ll stop here for now. I’ll continue with first dinner tomorrow!

Doh, I’ve fallen behind on blogging again. Well, here are some pics from last month when Olivia and Garrick came down to visit with their doggies:

Dark Knight Rises was good, but unfortunately not as good as Dark Knight. Not surprising, but I had my hopes up. I went to the marathon showing with Chad and Mikey and I guess Dark Knight is a pretty tough act to follow. I plan on seeing it again in IMAX and potentially enjoying it more the second time now that I know what to expect. My initial reaction - I wish they dropped the whole Bane backstory and instead spent that time on the Batman sidekicks. I felt like they spread themselves a bit too thin and spent time on inconsequential stuff while not enough time on parts that could have been really awesome. Anyways, it certainly was no Spiderman 3 or X-Men 3, so can’t complain that much I suppose. =) But darn it, I really wanted to be bawling at the end of this movie!

I’ve gotten an interesting spike of recruiters from the west coast contacting me via LinkedIn recently. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it’s nice to know my profile is appealing I guess. ;)

At the end of the month, it’s WEST COAST ROAD TRIP TIME!

Rather uneventful July 4th, I suppose. Hung out at the Oches with a few others. The dogs tired themselves out good. =) Here are some photos, and some from previous play dates.

Little Miles:

Mozilla on the hunt:

Almost ready to pounce:

“Oh noes! I’ve been spotted!”

Here’s Sam checking out Weishan:

Here’s Chad feeding Nancy my new MacBook Pro:

Speaking of my new MacBook Pro, the retina screen is pretty awesome. Recommended++.

Oh, and…

https://twitter.com/owiber/status/220224933224132608

Ok, as promised, here are some of those puppy pics:

Also, these earrings that I ordered a while ago came in:

They’re NOT for me, but they were too awesome for me not to get. I’m guessing they’ll go to some lucky nerd girl at some point, haha.

This past week, I gave a demo to the entire company, which is quite a lot of people now. It thankfully went well, which was awesome because the demo crashed and burned at the dry-run we had, but I guess that’s why you have dry-runs. =) I’m generally not nervous when presenting on topics I’m knowledgeable about, but now that we’re a couple hundred people and presentations like this are more of a production, I was really feeling the pressure. Like I said, it went well though, so I’ve got nothing to complain about. =)

Rapid fire news!

• I ordered a new MacBook Pro (retina, of course).


• Sam decided to introduce me to new people. ;)


• Mozilla’s been farting a lot today. Think I’m going to switch to another brand of food.


• Viraj ditched us this weekend for his cousins, who I guess he’s contracted Sam’s issue because according to Andrew, he’s really flirty with them. =)


• BV All-Hands and TXJS

Oh, and I guess I’ll steal this from Oriana:

Okay, I finally went through a few photos. Here’re some of Mozilla from the new food trailer park where the Buffet Palace burned down:

Here’s the Mother’s Day gift I made my mom:

BV treated me to a fancy dinner, so I took Oriana to Uchi this past weekend. Here are some of my favorite dishes:

Here’s Oriana:

Tata!

Ally is probably Mozilla’s best dog friend. They play all the time and play for forever. Here are pics I mentioned a while back but just got around to uploading to flickr.

Two nights ago, Mozilla must have eaten something bad cause he kept on throwing up. I had thought he was over it, so I let him on my bed but shortly after, he threw up on my pillow/bed, so I had to remove the sheets and switch to my backup:

I think I may be in the market for another house near the end of the year. Started to browse available ones just to get a feel for things again. A little excited about it (but not looking forward to the moving or the paperwork =/).

I don’t usually do these but I’m in “one of those moods” so Sam gets a nice post today. At least that’s my plan as of this sentence, we’ll see how it goes. =)

I’ve known many of my friends for a very long time (some for over half my life), and I love all of them… some in different ways than others. ;) Sam will probably be the first to tell you we have a special relationship. I met Sam back in high school when he was the tall, goofy, asian ROTC guy in the halls. I think he actually knew Olivia before me, but I do remember him showing up to computer club once (maybe he voted for me for president? haha). Back then, he looked something like this:

Sam’s of the class of 2002, so when I graduated in 2001, I went off to UT with a bunch of the gang and never really expected to see this guy again. Well, a year of shenanigans happens, then I stumble upon Sam again on the church’s internet forums and I borrow My Sassy Girl from him cause it’s supposedly a good movie. Somewhere during this time, it’s also discovered that we’re both looking for roommates for the coming semester, so the adventures of JW152 begin.

It’s here where Sam meets Mark who triggers what we dub “the downfall of Sam” which all started with a game of mario kart (or was it super monkey ball?) and a big green button. You can ask one of them about this, but suffice it to say that Sam then realized we’re a bunch of asses, especially Mark, and he didn’t quite know how to handle that. The remainder of our Jester days entailed, but were not limited to:

• Getting in the Daily Texan for having an infamously dirty dorm room:
  


• A $1 blow-up doll from eBay with some… accessories


• Getting noise complaints from below, above, and around our dorm room and having the RA kick people out of our room


• Sam looking at me while I slept and wondering what it would be like if I were a girl and we were watching the sun rise (don’t ask me, man, I found out cause he wrote about it on his xanga!)


• Webcam hijinks


• Drunken Pauls


• Food “accidents” on Sam’s bedding


• Hot sauce filled donuts


• Spilt milk


• Sam founded TiSA and didn’t even tell me until a semester or so later


• Sam changed his legal name and became an American citizen

Well, after that, a bunch of us moved into some really ghetto apartments just north of the Target near campus on I35. It was here that the Tower of Che-Kang was built:

Throughout the years, my Xanga has gone through two iterations dedicated to Sam (I wish I had kept the first one… sorry. I do remember it being very pink). I even joined Facebook originally back in the day to get my Sam loving Xanga more exposure! ;)

Speaking of which, here are some old FB posts. Sam hadn’t quite perfected his come-back to “suck it” at this point…

More recently, I built Samitic.us and the Samboard.

We’ve been to Key West:

Taiwan/Singapore:

New York City:

Vegas:

… and even Arkansas:

I’ve known Sam for over ten years now and he’s been the butt of many jokes (I swear he asks for most of them), and though I don’t admit this often, one of my bestest friends. Happy birthday, Sam!

I caught something last night, apparently, so now I’m all congested and I have a sore throat. =( These past few weeks have not been kind to my nose (allergies + cold).

On Thursday night, Andrew and Viraj came in to town for their three-day weekend. We went to Papa Tino’s, which was pretty good but the lighting was really dark. I wouldn’t really have gotten much with my Mark II, but the Mark III at 12800 ISO let me get these:

Certainly noisy, but not bad! I’m pretty pleased. These pics have more detail than I could make out with my eyes in that lighting.

And… here are some more Mozilla pics for your viewing pleasure. First, some Facebook timline fun. =)

I’ve got some shots of Mozilla and Ally playing in the grass, but I forgot to upload them to Flickr. Another time. =)

On Saturday, we played some frisbee game that involved two rectangular areas:

Viraj, at one point, called a disc out of bounds and reasoned “based on the line from that one cone, it’s out.” Apparently Viraj has redefined what makes a line and one can now be defined based on one point. The disc was in, it turns out.

I finished Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, the second and third books of the Hunger Games trilogy. I enjoyed Catching Fire quite a bit and it was certainly the best of the three (Hunger Games, I thought was mediocre). Mockingjay was probably somewhere in the middle, but I didn’t find the ending all that appealing. It felt awkward to me. Maybe the whole series was overhyped for me, but I felt a bit let-down by the ending. I’ve found that I’ve been enjoying books with complexity in not only plot but how the story’s told. I know Hunger Games is a “young adult” series, so that’s probably why it didn’t live up to my impression of the hype, but I thought the first and third books were a bit too.. simple I guess.

In related news, Harry Potter is now available in e-book formats (legit), so I’ve purchased the series and will start to read them. I kind of lost interest in the Dark Tower series (I’m somewhere in the middle of the third book I think), but maybe I’ll come back and finish that one day too. Guess all these books should come in handle tomorrow while I’m sitting at home recuperating…

Night!